Reading Time: 5 minutes

In this poignant letter, John Sturm, now a university librarian in Germany explains how his life journey began in the libraries of Cardiff, how libraries and librarians changed his life, and pleads with Cardiff Council not to make further cuts to libraries.

Currently Cardiff Council are consulting residents on plans to slash library open times and bring in more unpaid volunteers to do roles previously done by paid trained professional library staff. Newport Council are also proposing to cut library opening times, while Monmouthshire Council proposes to cut library staff jobs and halve its book budget. Since 2010, austerity has seen a third of public libraries in Wales either closing or changing hands. The letter has been shared with voice.wales

*Cardiff People’s Assembly are organising opposition to library cuts and you can join the campaign via their email: cardiffpeoplesassembly@gmail.com

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you with regards to the proposed budget savings around library provision in Cardiff. Libraries are a vital component for communities in many, many ways: from providing access to free books for low-income families and individuals, computer access, hub centres for council services and research and investigation services from skilled and trained professionals amongst many other facilities.

But I’d like to share a more personal narrative of just how vital these services are.

I was an avid user of libraries as a child. I grew up and spent the first 20 years of my life in Llandaff North. The branch library was my haven and a portal to worlds I never knew existed. It was here that I discovered the works of Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Goscinny & Uderzo and more. It was a place I could go every two weeks and order books that I could not afford to buy myself. These whole universes of imagination, free to me! And as a child from a fairly low-income household, it meant I never felt the lack of money we had as a restriction on my ability to explore these new worlds through the written word. The librarian there, Fiona, was kind and supportive and made the whole experience welcoming. In fact, she and the other members of staff there were a key part in making the library what it was.

Many years later, I applied for a temporary post in Rhiwbina library. It was a 6 month contract with no indication that it would be extended. Remembering how I felt using the library as a child I applied and was invited to come for an interview. I met with a panel of three and we chatted and I answered their questions as best I could. I clearly did well enough as I was offered the job which I gladly accepted. During the phone call with the chair of the interview panel, after she had offered me the post, she said that she remembered me. I was a bit confused until I realized that the chair of the panel was none other than Fiona Bailey, the librarian from Llandaff North library. The same Fiona that made my visits there so positive. She had, after 12 years, remembered me after all that time. It was, to say the least, astounding to me.

Fortunately for me as the 6 month post was coming to an end, there was another post available in Whitchurch library, so I worked there for a number of months before transferring to Llandaff North. The library that had been so formative and important to me as a child was now my place of work. I was so, so excited and honoured to be on the other side of the enquiries counter now. I wanted to do my very best to make every single person who walked through those doors, feel the way that I did when I was a borrower. I wanted them to feel the passion and dedication of myself and the team and to form the kind of emotional attachments I felt. It was surreal, I must say, to see the building from the perspective of an adult and to have access to those secret, off-limits places like the staff room or office… the places that held such mystery and intrigue for me as a child.

My last post in Cardiff Libraries was at the old Central Library. And this too, was an incredibly important place for me. In my early teens, when I was old enough to go into the city centre on my own, I always visited Central. I would go there to borrow records, CDs and cassettes; again because I had no money to buy these things. It was a vital lifeblood service for me. Just as the branch library opened my eyes to the world of the written word, now Central was helping me to broaden and reinforce my musical landscape. And not only that, they had thousands of books that I could browse too! And to be able to return these borrowed items to my branch library and not have to travel back into the centre? For free? Heaven. Not to mention an absolute bargain.

It was these two years in Cardiff Libraries that helped me realise that this is what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to work in libraries. I wanted to ‘talk books’ with people, I wanted to help those researching their family tree, I wanted to help set up story time materials for the next generation of library users, I wanted to help people get an answer to a question or to help them escape, even if for just a chapter, the routine and pressures of real life. I wanted to help people fall in love with books and reading.

I wanted to be a librarian.

So that’s what I did. I gained a degree in Librarianship from Northumbria University which allowed me to enter the world of university libraries and so, here I am, many years after my time working in Cardiff Libraries and many, many years since I first visited them as a borrower, Campus Librarian for an American university in Heidelberg, Germany. I should also mention that it was during my time at Rhiwbina library, on that temporary contract, that I met the woman who I would go on to marry, have a child with and end up moving to Germany with. So you see, Cardiff Libraries is not only responsible for my professional life but also my private life. The impact that that little branch library (and Cardiff Libraries with all its myriad of facilities and services) had on me is incalculable.

And not just me either.

Thousands of people from all parts of our city’s society, use libraries. Yes, you may see a decline in the number of books issued per year, but what the stats won’t tell you is the impact that libraries have in areas you can’t quantify. I know this is virtually useless as part of budget discussions where numbers and statistics are paramount, but it is vital that the Council remember that not everything is about numbers.

The relationships developed between staff and visitors, the sense of safety and security for those vulnerable in our society, removing the barrier of low income/poverty and access to books and computers…. Libraries should be the beating heart of the community and with all due respect to the existing volunteers already in place, reducing trained and qualified professional staff and replacing them with volunteers is a mistake without, at the very least, a comprehensive on-boarding training scheme that will equip all staff with the necessary skills needed for modern library services (including, but not limited to, effective search strategies, customer service training, reference interviews and much more).

I am now almost 1000 miles away from the library that means so much to me. I am now more than 30 years away from the child that walked through those doors, eyes filled with wonder. Yet, that library… the service still means something to me. It still impacts me to this day, in many ways that far exceed the bricks and mortar and shelves and Dewey Decimal labels and on and on. Without Cardiff Libraries, I wouldn’t have the life I have now.

I love my library.

So should you.

Yours,

JOHN STURM

BSc (Hons) Librarianship

Campus Librarian: Schiller International University, Heidelberg, Germany.

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